April in Paris

a
general feeling of joie de vivre ensured Sunday
was a happy day for everyone

Our first trip to Paris began at London’s Waterloo Station. The
place was churning chaos as we joined the queue for the nine o’clock
Eurostar. Passing through the turnstile was like going through Harry
Potter’s brick wall to another world. Eurostar equanimity and
French efficiency kicked-in instantly. With dignified calm, our train
was punctual to a nanosecond. Three hours later, in relaxed frame of
mind, we alighted at Gare du Nord. A short trip on the Metro took us
to our little hotel on Rue de Lancry; not the Ritz, but adequate for
our whistle-stop tour.

We
dumped our luggage, grabbed a light lunch and headed for Sacré
Coeur. We saw it at its best, a mammoth confection gleaming white against
a sun-bright sky, the crowds swarming like summer ants. A guidebook
told me that the Musée de Montmartre housed a painting by Modigliani,
so we set off to navigate the tracery of narrow alleys, leaving behind
the street artists and souvenir shops. We passed a plaque marking Erik
Satie’s house and touched the very doorknob that Rodin had used
to enter his lodgings. We found the museum, a narrow multi-storey house
with a tiny walled courtyard where a rheumaticky Labrador slept in the
sunshine and a few ancient, gnarled fruit trees had been carefully wired
and propped to ensure their survival.

We checked every room of the museum, but our quest was
in vain. Finally, in faltering French, I asked the attendant if they
had the picture. With a knowing look, he informed us it had been sold
some years before and that the guidebooks were out of date. “Many
people come here looking for it,” he added with a rueful smile.
Oh well, the little courtyard was a memorable moment of time-travel
and I did see some original posters by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec. No doubt
the Musée de Montmartre had to part with its Modigliani to raise
funds – so perhaps the out-of-date guidebooks ensure a necessary
trickle of tourist revenue; I’d like to think so.

We zoomed back to our hotel via the Metro before venturing
out to the nearby Place de la République where we found a very
pleasant restaurant for our evening meal.

Saturday
morning saw us back on the Metro. We hopped off at Les Halles to give
the shops a once over. From there we walked to the Pompidou Centre -
a modern construction the concept of which is ‘a building inside
out’: a love it or hate it kind of thing of innovative design
which sits incongruously beside traditional buildings. Another flock
of sketch artists hovered, tempting tourists to sit for a drawing. We
soon fell into the pavement café habit, pleasant moments punctuating
our various ports of call.

We saw Musée du Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Notre
Dame, la Tour D’Eiffel and, of course, we walked along the Champs
Elysées where the world and his dog gather to strut their stuff,
a lovely place on a warm spring day that epitomises this vibrant city.

Sunday dawned fresh and bright and we strolled the pristine
morning streets. We partook of the inevitable coffee before setting
off to follow the route of the picturesque Canal St-Martin, which runs
through the city. Where the canal and its pleasure boats disappear underground,
the area above is given over to a huge street market where vast mountains
of fresh vegetables, fruit and herbs are displayed. There was a busy
trade in scallops, oysters, mussels and various fish, the containers
of some declaring they were ‘Fresh from Scotland’. We shuffled
through the mêlée of shoppers who were intent on hunting
down cheeses, bread, and a miscellany of trinkets and household wares.

As we left the market behind a road sign announced that
on Sundays people might use the cycle lanes to enjoy their roller-blades
and skateboards. And enjoy them they did; young people whizzed along
the designated area definitely having fun. Motorists were very tolerant
and a general feeling of joie de vivre ensured Sunday was a happy day
for everyone.

We
walked on until we were alongside the Seine and there followed a path
that led us under the famous archways. There was the occasional vagrant’s
cardboard chrysalis tidily tucked into the foot of an arch. Participants
in the Paris Marathon panted across the bridge at street level. Then
we sat for a while in amiable silence soaking up the sunshine. I pondered
the sad analogy of ‘above the bridge-beneath the bridge’
existence – two strata of society, the motivated and the melancholy
superimposed on the backdrop of a bridge. Just then the haunting sound
of a lone saxophone drifted across the water, a mellifluous sound which
suited the ambience of the afternoon. The good, the bad, and the beautiful
were contained in those moments at the river’s edge.

We spent our last evening in the restaurant where we
had begun to feel like ‘regulars’. The after dinner dish
of bon-bons had grown with each visit; the final offering was magnificent.

Next morning we walked to Gare du Nord, wheelie-bags
snapping at our heels. With clockwork precision our train pulled in.
As Eurostar rushed us through rural France I pondered my first experience
of Paris. Many irksome things about our own cities had been noticeably
absent. No chewing gum on the footpaths, streets were washed daily,
and young people actually gave up their seats for me on the Metro. Parisians
have a reputation to be proud of; they are eternally chic, and I’m
glad to say have preserved their famous café culture.

With the dust of Paris still on our shoes we stepped
out at Waterloo. In the not too distant future, I will return to linger
longer in that lovely city.

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